ORCHIDS BLOOMING NOW

Some of the free orchids that I was able to obtain from the freecycle group in my area are in bloom now.

The ones that are blooming are the Dendrobium type which grow long canes.

I think that these are the most common type that I see around this area .

Most of the dendrobiums that I have seen locally bloom purple flowers or variations thereof.

This guy had beige petals with a purple troat which made it special and my favorite so far.

This one turned out with the purple petals but a light center.

And the baby of the group is blooming solid purple. It is in a clay pot the size of a coffee cup and the blooms are very small perhaps the size of a quarter.

I am really happy with the Orchids and am trying to learn more about them.

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CONTAINER TOMATO PLANTS

I planted out the two tomato plants yesterday that I bought from Lowe's. This year I am going to try growing the plants in five gallon buckets. I always seem to have trouble growing tomato's here but it is mostly my fault for not adapting to the different growing season here in South Florida.
This year I have decided to listen to the experts and read up on several articles published by the University Of Florida IFAS Extention Service on growing tomatos in containers and in South Florida. They have a wealth of information and advice and will make a good source of information. The web address is http://edis.ifas.ufl.edu/ .

The two plants I found are Celebrity and Big boy type that I will be trying to grow. I figure if the nursery's sell them here that they must be the type that grow well here.

I drilled some 1/2 inch holes in the bottom of the five gallon buckets for drainage and set them up on some old 2x4 boards so the drain holes will work.

Next is to make up some liquid fertilizer for the plants from a recipe from the extention website article . It requires:
2 cups of 666, 686 or 688 fertilizer
6 tablespoons of Epsom salt
1/2 teaspoon of Iron Chilate
All the above mixed with water in a One gallon container to make the Base formula.

The base is then used by mixing two tablespoons to a gallon of water which is applied to the Tomato's every three days.

I have every confidence that following their advice will make my tomato plants grow more better [ as we say in the South ]. ------sanddune---------
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BEWARE FALLING AVOCADO ZONE

I found a surprise waiting for me this morning as I walked around my backyard. It seems that one of the upper branches of my Avocado tree snapped off and fell onto my metal shed. It was full of fruit and put a nice size hole in the sheds metal roof.

The fruit from the tree are about the size of small cannon balls and probably one to two pounds each.

Every now and again I end up patching up the holes made by the falling fruit and banging back out the metal on the storage shed. It is definitely a hard hat area this time of year.

The cleanup effort earned me three five gallon buckets full of avocados. My wife and I don't eat them but there are always people asking for them and apparently they are very good tasting to the Avocado fans. The biggest fan is my Yorkshire Terrier Odette. She loves Avocados and waits all year for them to fall. She will even give up chasing a lizard for a fresh Avocado. Go figure.

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OCTOBER UPDATE

Just returned home from a 10 day cruise to Panama, Columbia, Costa Rica and Jamaica. It was great and I was able to visit several rain forests and took lots of pictures of some of the tropical plants from the different country's.

The only problem for my home garden is that I missed out on starting my tomato seeds. But now that I am back it will be time to catch up for my vegetable plantings. The local paper said that the optimum date here by Miami to plant the fall garden is October 16th.

Since I missed germinating my own seeds for my tomato plants I bought a couple from Lowe's. One is a Celebrity and the other Big boy. I am going to plant them in containers and follow the directions given by the Florida Extension service and see how they turn out. I try to grow tomatoes every year but always plant them in late spring and they burn up in the summer heat as well as get attacked by the summer bug explosion. This year I have decided to plant them at the correct time and follow the experts advice on their care. I hated paying retail price for the plants that I can start myself from seeds but the trip was worth the sacrifice. ---sanddune------

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